


from across the distant shore

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cancer, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Superpowered, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:36:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is dying and, to distract him or to give him hope, he and Bucky tell each other far-fetched stories about a world in which they're superheroes, who save each other, over and over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	from across the distant shore

**Author's Note:**

> +Title from _Into the West_ by Annie Lennox  
>  + **Specific warnings** in the end notes. (Non-specific warning for angst.)  
>  +This is all Sarah's fault.

“How’s he doing?”

“He has ears, you know,” Steve calls from the bed. 

Pepper steps into the bedroom, looking sheepish but not remotely ruffled. “Sorry, Steve. I’m never sure if you’re going to be asleep when I get here.”

Steve smiles. “I guess I’m doing a lot of that these days.”

“Is James around?”

“He’s just walking the dog, I think?” Steve plucks at the bedspread. He used to walk the dog. Last year, he used to walk the dog. Two years ago, he and Bucky used to run along the beach with the dog. 

His life is a world of used to.

.

“So, Captain America and Bucky Barnes go to war together. Bucky’s the sidekick. He’ll do anything to keep Cap safe. He’ll do all the dirty work so that Cap doesn’t have to -”

“He sounds too good to be true.”

 _”Hey-_ ”

.

“Where’s the childhood sweetheart, Barnes?”

“He’s asleep. _Hey_ , we weren’t-”

 

.

They meet when they are teenagers. They’re on opposite teams, inconceivable though that is. 

.

“We met playing rugby,” Bucky says. He’s sprawled out on the couch nearest the bedroom door, which is ajar. He will hear if Steve calls. 

“Rugby?” Darcy looks appalled with the very idea. “What’s wrong with goddamned football?”

Bucky laughs. “Steve went to a private school with some kinda colonial aspirations and I was at this place that was, like, one step above being a correctional facility. They thought rugby would be good for discipline.”

“Your school _was_ a correctional facility.” Steve’s voice is so weak. Bucky jumps to his feet, his heart racing. 

“Steve, are you okay? Why the fuck are you out of bed?” 

Steve looks worse, somehow, when he’s standing on his own. His elbows are pointy, even through the flannel pyjamas and he is hunched over, when he always stood so tall and proud. He smiles, though, and his smile is still the same, fit to beat the sun for blinding and shining. Bucky’s hand is on one of those pointy elbows and he guides Steve to sit down on the couch and he tucks a blanket around his knee, like Steve’s ninety. Steve’s still got some strength, though, and he tugs Bucky down to sit next to him. 

“Go on, then,” he says, curled against Bucky. “Tell my assistant all about how you broke my collarbone when we first met.”

“So, my boy Rogers is standing there -”

“ _Barnes_ , your boy Barnes-”

“Shush, you were Rogers then. He’s standing there, right in the centre, wearing red, white and blue like a fucking _flag_.” 

“Red rag to a bull,” says Steve, softly. 

“We had to take you out if we were gonna win.”

“You didn’t, though, did you?” Steve smiles at Darcy. “My team still won, while I was on the way to the nearest radiology department.” 

.

Sometimes Bucky reacts before he even realises he’s offended or hurt. When Steve tells him that he’s sick and that it’s serious, Bucky asks him to marry him.

Steve says that maybe Bucky ought to think about it. They don’t know how much time he has. 

“Call me greedy, pal, but I want all your time. All of it.”

.

“They grow up together-”

“Oh yeah?”

“In Brooklyn, before the war. They’re in the same orphanage. Steve’s this sickly, weedy thing, back then. Bucky looks after him.”

“See, Steve, this doesn’t sound much like a fairy-tale. Dunno what this chemo is doing to your imagination-”

“He gets this drug, though. Some big injection and when it’s done, he’s bigger, all over. He’s Captain America.”

“Where’s Bucky during all of this, huh?”

“He’s at war. He’s gone to war and he’s captured. So St- So Captain America saves him.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Hey, Buck?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I think I can sleep now.”

.

It’s a torrid love affair. Three years after their bone-breaking encounter in the field of play, Steve Rogers meets Bucky Barnes at a frat party. Neither of them are in the fraternity and Bucky doesn’t even go to this school.

“He doesn’t even go to this school!” shouts Tony Stark, who is a member of _Sigma Iota_. “We have an infiltrator!”

“Why are you friends with him?” asks Bucky, like he even knows Steve.

Steve smiles, a bit too fondly and a bit too wisely for a boy of twenty years. “Because he’s a good guy, under it all.” He turns to look at Bucky. “Why _are_ you here?”

Bucky points at a beautiful redhead. “She dragged me along. I’m powerless when Natalia wants something.”

“Ah.” 

“She’s got a crush on one of the frat - dudes? She says she needs a wingman which is total bullshit because when Nat has her eye on a guy.” Bucky gesticulates. “Let’s just say, search and destroy-”

Steve raises an eyebrow before worrying at his lower lip. “Say, Barnes?”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna get out of here?” 

“I’m not-”

“Yeah, I know.” 

(Except that Bucky _is_ , and he wants, and he doesn’t leave Steve’s bed for the whole weekend.)

.

“So, you’re telling me that Cap is Sleeping Beauty?”

“Bucky is, too.”

“Yeah, but he’s totally going to the dark side. For a while, anyway.”

“Buck, don’t even pretend like you’re this mysteriously conflicted antihero.”

“ _I_ could be conflicted-”

“Right. About as conflicted as a nuclear device. About as destructive, too.”

“ _Hey-_ ”

“Anyway, Cap wakes up in the future and everything is neon and lights. Tony’s there.”

“Hmm. I’ll allow it provided Pepper’s there to rein him in.”

“Deal. Tony’s special power is that he’s-”

“Super smart and a complete asshole?”

“Oh, of course. Some things never change. Anyway, he’s got this suit, this metal suit with guns and a whole artificial intelligence thing going on-”

“There is _nothing_ artificial about my intelligence-”

“ _Tony_ , how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to hear how _awesome_ superhero me is.”

.

“I love you, Bucky-”

“I think - I think we need a break.”

.

Doctor Coulson is a good guy. Bucky knows this, intellectually. He knows it, emotionally, too, but he’s trying not to let his heart rule his head. 

“Doc, are you _sure_ there’s nothing we can do?”

“I am so sorry, James. The prognosis is _guarded_ , at best.” 

That’s the thing about Coulson. He’s careful with his words but Bucky knows his mind is moving super-fast. He knows that Coulson’s one of the best and that he’d do anything for his patients. Bucky heard one of the other lymphoma patients in the day ward say that Coulson gives great hugs. Oh, he’s still talking. Steve’s doctor is still talking and Bucky’s zoned out because it’s too much information. It’s too much bad news for one week.

“- not one, but two mutations which means it’s difficult to treat.”

Bucky tries to smile. “Well. You know Steve. He always has to do it the hard way.”

.

They’re on a break, when it happens. Bucky calls it mutual but, really, he wants a break and Steve agrees. Bucky’s younger than Steve. He’s not sure he’s ready for this commitment. No, it’s not even commitment. He’s not sure he’s ready to come out. He’s not sure he’s ready to be Steve’s boyfriend. 

Steve, well. Steve takes it like a champ. He tells Bucky to enjoy Europe. He kisses him, slow and sweet. He doesn’t tell him he loves him again but it’s implied in his kiss and in the way he palms Bucky’s ass, pulling their bodies tight together. 

So, Bucky goes to Europe and Steve stays in New York. 

.

“So, Cap finds Bucky and he’s strapped to this table. He was experimented on and he’s in a pretty bad way.”

“Bucky recognises him, though. He’d recognise that face anywhere.”

“They still have to fight to get past the bad guys. There are explosions and flames everywhere.”

“They help each other out. They’re not leaving without each other.”

“Oh, Buck. I don’t want to, you know. I don’t want to leave without you.”

“I know, pal. It’s just. Bad timing. That’s all.” 

.

Steve is pretty well-known. His rugby career ended tragically early, thanks to a broken collarbone (courtesy of the man who became his husband; it’s everyone’s favourite piece of Steve Rogers trivia) but his photography career has gone from strength to strength. 

When Bucky is in London, he goes to the Imperial War Museum and idles around the Cecil Beaton exhibition and thinks how much Steve would like it. He buys him a diary. He thinks maybe he’s in love. He thinks maybe he’s made a horrible mistake.

Bucky flies home, a whole month earlier than he’d intended. He knocks on Steve’s door. He knocks and knocks and knocks. He’s got flowers and he’s got a diary and, on every Friday night, he’s pencilled in _DATE NIGHT W J.B. BARNES_. 

.

“If you want to sleep with other people,” says Steve, slowly. “That’s - that’s okay. I don’t mind. I know I can’t give you - Just. Just don’t fall in love with them, if you can help it.”

Bucky is so angry that he has to leave the house. He drives around on his motorbike, without a helmet on, because that’ll show them. Somehow, that’ll show them all. 

When he comes home, a shade after midnight, Steve is asleep. He’s at the very edge of the bed, gripping to it, like an anchor in the high-swelling waves. Bucky kneels on the floor and strokes Steve’s hair back from his face.

Steve’s eyes flicker open. 

“So, Captain America has to put a team together,” whispers Bucky. “And everyone wants to be on the team. The last guy he asks, though, is Bucky, maybe because he’s not sure Bucky’s gonna say yes even though Bucky’s always been stupid about him.”

Steve smiles, his eyes fixed on Bucky.

“Because that’s the thing, Steve. Bucky is always gonna be there for Cap. Where else would he be?”

.

“Tony makes suits for all his friends.”

“Yeah?”

“Totally. Well, not for Cap or Bucky or Hulk because, you know-”

“Big and green.”

“Right. But he makes one for Rhodey and one for Pepper.”

“That sounds terrifying. Awesome, though.”

.

Steve is dehydrated and his port is blocked so he has to go into hospital. Bucky goes as soon as he hears. 

As he rushes into Steve’s room, a junior doctor is leaving. Steve is flexing his arm, where there’s a brand new IV cannula to tide him over until they can unblock the port. 

“Oh god,” says Bucky, scowling after the junior doctor. “I hope he didn’t hurt you.” Bucky knows how fragile Steve’s veins are now; how precious every one of them is.

“Don’t worry, pal. I had him on the ropes.”

.

They spent Steve’s twenty-first birthday on the beach at Coney Island. They hold hands and Bucky is a little uncomfortable but Steve is smiling that smile of his and Bucky can’t complain. They go back to Manhattan and to the West Village and they dance together in a club. Steve’s not a very good dancer but neither is Bucky so they just sway together and Bucky thinks maybe this isn’t so bad.

.

“They should be charged with _murder_ ,” says Tony, hissing and gesturing at Steve’s door. “They did this to him.”

Bucky shakes his head (maybe he did this to Steve, too). “No, Tony. Please. It won’t be long now. I don’t want Steve getting upset.”

Tony deflates quickly. “I know. _God_ , I know. He’d probably campaign for better prison conditions for them or something.”

“He loves a good cause,” says Bucky. He looks at the door, solid and unyielding. 

“But if they hadn’t-”

“I know, Tony.”

“Then he’d never have gotten-”

“Tony, Tony, I know.” 

Bucky’s not sure how they go from half-arguing to supporting each other’s weight. Tony sobs but Bucky can’t cry. Not anymore. 

.

“I’m not afraid. Just so you know. I’m not afraid of dying.”

“Oh god, _Steve._ _I’m_ afraid.”

“Don’t be.”

Bucky thought he couldn’t cry. “It’s just, if I’m holding your hand, who’s going to hold _mine_ when my time comes?” He wants to call Steve a selfish bastard but it’s so untrue.

“I will, Buck,” whispers Steve. “I’ll be there. Just. You know. On the other side.”

“I swear to God, you’d better be.” 

.

“He crashes it into the ice.”

“Oh, I call plothole. I call giant gaping plothole.”

“Cap’s not dumb. It’s his only choice.” 

“Ugh. Why isn’t there an ejector seat or something?”

“I guess life doesn’t work like that, Bucky.”

**Author's Note:**

> + **Warnings:** major character death (offscreen but inevitable), previous physical and sexual trauma (vaguely implied), bucketfuls of angst, medical procedures.  
>  +I've not gone into any specifics about Steve's diagnoses rather deliberately and this representation of the inevitability of bereavement is not a million miles from my own experience.


End file.
